Government-sponsored study destroys DEA’s classification of marijuana

A government-sponsored study published this month in The Open Neurology Journal concludes that marijuana provides much-needed relief to some chronic pain sufferers and that more clinical trials are desperately needed, utterly destroying the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency’s (DEA) classification of the drug as having no medical uses.

While numerous prior studies have shown marijuana’s usefulness for a host of medical conditions, none have ever gone directly at the DEA’s placement of marijuana atop the schedule of controlled substances. This study, sponsored by the State of California and conducted at the University of California Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research, does precisely that, driving a stake into the heart of America’s continued war on marijuana users by calling the Schedule I placement simply “not accurate” and “not tenable.”

Reacting to the study, Paul Armentano, director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), told Raw Story that the study clearly proves U.S. drug policy “is neither based upon nor guided by science.”

1. The word "study" dooms it

Richard Nixon ignored the results of his own Blue Ribbon Commission after they did a study and recommended, among other things, that marijuana offenses should receive no criminal penalty.

Look at the horrible "performance" of Michelle Leonhart, head of the DEA as she is asked some very basic questions about the effects of different drugs.

Now consider this: Ask any parent, anywhere if they had a child involved in drugs, which would they prefer: methamphetamine, heroin or marijuana. It is a very easy question to answer, even for an ordinary citizen. But Ms. Leonhart was baffled by it.

5. It's ALL "propaganda"....

"Medical marijuana is mostly used for chronic pain, and has enabled countless patients to either reduce or eliminate their pharmaceutical drug regimen,”

After all these years everybody knows it is a beneficial plant. Personally, my own anecdotal experience would have me proclaim it the best and only medicine I'll ever need and exactly the kind of social 'lubricant' that would eliminate the need for all the negative things in our culture.

Ill health may be at the top of everybody's fear list but if "science" is arguing with itself over the efficacy of MMJ, then it is time to move the discussion.

Clearly there is a massive economic component involved in replacing 'a 100' bestselling over-the-counter pseudo-drugs with an un patented plant from the weed family. As expected in a free-market medical industry, the propaganda from all sides is thick and heavy. And, equally obvious, is that it is really only about the money.

We should join the propaganda war instead of being played by the various segments of the industrial ruling class. There isn't , even here, a forum to express the medicinal affects of MMJ. Yet the industrial ruling class has full reign to design the playing field and set the rules.

6. using science to dispute outrageous claims is not propaganda

the use of verifiable results to test claims is the way that people come to understand that the entire prohibition of marijuana is based upon lies.

obviously scientists can be corrupt and use their work to support false claims - like when Reagan kept touting that guy's "scientific" report that marijuana killed brain cells - when the reality was denying a chimpanzee oxygen, as people already knew, would kill brain cells. Science made it possible to dispute the claim - while corrupt right wing govt forces fought like hell to keep the data unavailable to know how the test was run, for as long as they could.

the sad truth, of course, is that science has been disputing the claims of the anti-marijuana prohibitionists since the day it was "prohibited" by requiring a tax stamp that wouldn't be permitted.

Doctors disagreed with the legislature at the hearing - and were denounced.

The entire history of prohibition is a history of racism and corruption.

Science is not arguing over the issue of medical marijuana. Science indicates marijuana is less habit-forming than caffeine, has never caused a death, has definite benefits for patients with various illnesses, marijuana has saved or extended lives by making it possible to keep down powerful drugs, has proven benefits for people with MS - marijuana is already approved as a drug to treat side effects of MS in Germany, the UK, Israel and Canada via GS/Bayer Pharma "sativex" - marijuana completely removes a form of neuropathic pain associated with a breast cancer drug treatment, marijuana stops epileptic seizures for some people with epilespy - and in human trials, cannabinoids shrunk brain tumor cells.

So, good science demonstrates that cannabis should be legal.

We're a reality-based society - the claim that anyone wants to make that marijuana should be illegal has no scientific basis.

7. Don't misunderstand my position.

I'm a long-time advocate of cannabis. The first thought I had after my introductory doobie was, "Wow! This could change the world...." That was in 1965 and the world was in dire need of change.

All of the legitimate scientific studies at the time recommended decriminalization citing the benign nature of cannabis. The government of Canada did the LeDain Commission in 1967 and convinced us that by '68, it would be legal. And just like Obama they ran up against the REAL ruling mechanism.

However, even though the truth was out about the nature of cannabis and our country appeared to have more than a passing interest in promoting public health, the opposition to cannabis use has remained strong. We've let ourselves get sidetracked, let the opposition set the agenda and the discussions.

"Science indicates marijuana is less habit-forming than caffeine, has never caused a death, has definite benefits for patients with various illnesses, marijuana has saved or extended lives by making it possible to keep down powerful drugs, has proven benefits for people with MS - marijuana is already approved as a drug to treat side effects of MS in Germany, the UK, Israel and Canada via GS/Bayer Pharma "sativex" - marijuana completely removes a form of neuropathic pain associated with a breast cancer drug treatment, marijuana stops epileptic seizures for some people with epilepsy - and in human trials, cannabinoids shrunk brain tumor cells."

And "science" claims to have perfectly good patented drugs, already available for these conditions and that is my point. They are way ahead of us.

Our scientific superiority is based on 'public health and economics' but clearly those are not crucial components of the drug industry.

8. okay

but the reality is that there are not patent drugs out there that are as effective for some things for some people. medicine is like that - not all people have the same response and some people respond better to one thing than another.

but - even so - if propaganda is the way to go - what kind of propaganda?

9. "Who" you ask...good question.

Hmmmm......

'Who' needs to know that the introduction of legal marijuana/hemp into our economy/culture would spell the end of the world as we know it.

We have to go back to telling people how much better it would be without the petro-chemical companies controlling all aspects of our lives. Freeing people from their dependency on modern science recognizing that each of us is different and probably quite capable of determining what is Good for Us.

We need to make movies like REEFER MADNESS, only about the medical industry. Like SICKO but further.

10. so, talk about hemp as a petrol replacement product?

that's happening now - and one Rep. had a hemp amendment added to a recent ag bill but it was removed.

But Weyden said the hemp issue would be back.

the way I see it - if you look at polls, the American people have supported legal medical marijuana for more than a decade because so many have seen evidence that mmj stops nausea - and, specifically, smoked (or vaped) mmj works within seconds.

marinol is not as effective - patients prefer the herb b/c it works faster and has CBD (another cannabinoid) while marinol only has THC. Given a choice between the two, people chose marijuana - based upon their experience as cancer patients. At least that's the information supplied from doctors from reports from their patients...and those people, at this point, know more about it than anyone else dealing with the issue.

For more than a decade - an overwhelming majority of Americans have supported legal mmj - more than 70% for more than a decade. That's pretty amazingly consistent, in spite of govt. propaganda.

Truth, derived from experience, seems to have overcome every bit of propaganda from the govt regarding this issue.

And the most recent poll on this issue from a conservative polling org showed that the majority of Americans favored legal recreational marijuana, too.

In spite of govt. propaganda.

I think these changes have come about because people have been exposed to facts.

I think the huge change in support for legal marijuana has happened because people have access to the internet, can read studies for themselves, and the govt cannot control the flow of information.

The problem, at this point, is that the American people are far ahead of the federal govt on this issue - because some people's jobs are at stake, the funding for their bureaucracies is at stake, and their power is threatened - at the federal level of govt., from funding from certain industries, and from the industries themselves.

It's sort of the same problem that we have with the banksters and Wall Street - a few with too much power to influence legislation and other actions are protecting themselves at everyone else's expense.